


Perfectly Normal, Thank You Very Much

by dontwatchmechange



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Post Deathly Hallows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2020-04-08
Packaged: 2021-02-23 11:29:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23544175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dontwatchmechange/pseuds/dontwatchmechange
Summary: Ron and Hermione go to Australia to fix her parents' memories, but Hermione didn't tell them much in the first place.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley
Comments: 1
Kudos: 29





	Perfectly Normal, Thank You Very Much

"This is the place," said Hermione with complete confidence, checking Ron out of habit for Apparition wounds.

"Merlin, Hermione, we only Apparated from the airport. I'm fine." He brushed off a bit of his sweater that had been severed in the move.

"They'll be dying to meet you again." Hermione approached the door of the suburban palace cautiously. "It's been, what, six years?"

"They don't remember me," said Ron. "They don't even remember you."

"I told you, Ron, I've only modified their memories, not Obliviated them completely. I can undo it." She frowned at the exterior of the home. "It's a shame I didn't turn them into the sort of people who leave their windows open."

Ron knocked on the door.

"Ron!"

"Well, we came all this way, you had to knock sometime."

Hermione's mother, whose papers, effects, and memories all indicated that her name was Monica Wilkins, answered the door. "Awfully late in the evening to be canvassing, don't you think?"

Hermione pointed her wand, and slowly, Mrs. Granger's memories started to come back. "Oh, God. Hermione. How could I forget?"

"You were under some protective magic," explained Hermione. "Go get Dad and I'll explain."

"Come in, come in," said a truly confused Mrs. Granger.

"Who's there, Monica?" asked Mr. Granger, under the delusion that his name was Wendell, from a seat in the living room.

Hermione pointed again, and Mr. Granger's memories reassembled. "My God. What happened?"

"You were in danger. I put you in a sort of witness protection. You're safe to come home now."

"You wiped our memories?"

"You wouldn't have been safe," said Ron. "They had dark magic you couldn't even imagine."

"What do you mean, dark magic?" asked Mr. Granger.

Ron turned to Hermione. "I thought their memories were back."

"Only what I told them in the first place," she hissed.

"What did you tell them?"

"Er. They know I'm a witch and I go to Hogwarts. They know I'm a very good student. They know I have two best friends named Harry and Ron and they know I'm not allowed to do magic over the holidays."

"Hermione, that's the bare minimum."

"Exactly. Can you imagine if I'd told them the truth all these years? They'd never have let me go back from the minute I fell into the Devil's Snare. When I put it like that, it sounds worse than it is," said Hermione to her parents.

"You're serving the devil?"

"Quite the opposite," said Hermione. "I was… oh, where do I even begin. There was Wizard Hitler. This eugenicist who took over the Ministry and wanted to kill all the wizards with Muggle parents.”

“Who’s Hitler?” asked Ron, to the utter dismay of Hermione’s parents.

“A Muggle Voldemort in the 1940s. Racism isn’t unique to wizards. Anyway. His name was Voldemort. Harry killed him yesterday.”

“Your friend Harry?” repeated Mrs. Granger.

“My friend Harry, yes. There was a prophecy, it had to be him. Ron and I helped.”

“Why did you get involved?”

“First of all, I was Harry Potter’s best friend. I was the most wanted Muggle-born in the known universe. I couldn’t just stay at school.”

“You didn’t stay in school?”

“Oh, my God,” said Hermione, “I knew you’d get hung up on that. I killed wizard Hitler, surely that’s enough for you.”

“Have you been in danger these last seven years?”

Hermione thought back. “I can’t remember a time I wasn’t in danger these last seven years.”

“Tell us everything. Now.”

“That’s a long story,” said Ron.

“Both of you. Start with this Devil’s Snare business.”

“Well, Voldemort was trying to get the Philosopher’s Stone…”

\---

“Chess with living pieces? Ron, you could’ve died when it knocked you out.”

“That was a risk I had to take,” said Ron solemnly.

“You children are insane.”

\---

“Well, I’d imagine you’d have been scared,” said Hermione’s mother sympathetically.

“No, I wasn’t scared, I was Petrified. Literally. Paralyzed. Put in a coma.”

“How’d they get you back?”

“Oh, it was pretty easy, actually. Just a simple potion.”

“Took them, like, a month, though,” said Ron.

“Why are you making everything sound so terrible?” asked Hermione bitterly.

“Because it was!” said Ron. “My sister was terrorizing the school against her will and I didn’t have my best friend to help me through it!”

Hermione’s parents stared blankly.

\---

“If you had the time machine-”

“Time-Turner, yeah.”

“Couldn’t you just go back in time and kill baby Voldemort? Or baby Hitler?”

“It’s actually a linear model of time travel,” said Ron, “in which events that are caused by the time travel already happen the first time ‘round.”

Hermione grinned in spite of the situation. “What do you know of Muggle theories of time travel, Ron?”

“Harry and I used to talk about it before we knew it was real.”

\---

“So wizards can come back to life?”

“Only if they have Horcruxes, which are these dark artifacts that get created when you kill someone.”

“So there’s magical incentive to murder.”

“No one sane would want to live forever. Even Nicolas Flamel gave it up six hundred years in.”

“Nicolas Flamel was real, too?”

\---

“You should’ve known that was a trick. Voldemort planted that idea in Harry’s mind just so you’d go running right into his trap.”

“We were children.”

“You still are!”

“No, we’re adults now. We come of age at seventeen.”

“Plus we’ve done a lot of adult stuff,” said Ron, gesturing to himself and Hermione.

“Like killing dictators,” she said quickly.

\---

“Dumbledore’s dead?” asked Mrs. Granger.

“Yeah, that was the turning point,” said Ron. “The bad guys took over Hogwarts, and we knew it wasn’t safe to stay anymore. We’d basically been on the run ever since.”

“I really thought that man could do anything,” said Mr. Granger. “You always described him that way.”

“Heroes fall,” said Hermione.

\---

“You stole a dragon from the most secure bank in the world.”

“Yes.”

“Huh.”

\---

“What I’ve concluded,” said Mrs. Granger, “is that you need to go back to that school.”

“What?” asked Hermione.

“You need your degree,” said Mr. Granger. “You’re never going to get a job if you don’t have one.”

“And more importantly,” said Mrs. Granger, “you need some adult supervision.”

“I don’t even know if they’ll let me back in.”

“You killed Wizard Hitler,” said Mrs. Granger. “If they don’t let you back in on full scholarship, you just let us know, and we’ll give them hell.”


End file.
